Archive for August, 2009

First 25 Subscribers Get Three Months Social Networking Service for $200.*

Here’s the deal ~

We launched Chalkboarder.com this past summer. We are a digital community management service offering client organizations real-time content production and strategic brand management messaging into online communities.

We need clients in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, New England and the Pacific Northwest.

To introduce ourselves and the quality of our services – we’re offering a roll-out deal that we’re very excited about.

We’ll conduct social media campaigning for three months for your organization for $200. Yes, $200 US dollars, flat-fee for the entire quarter.

What you’ll get:

Competent and rapid brand messaging into social networks

Creative social media campaign development

Online “buzz” about your organization and what you do

What Chalkboarder.com will get:

The opportunity to create a long-term, sustainable relationship with your organization

The opportunity to deeply learn your brand and story

The opportunity to “push” your organization into online media

And, you’ll help finance our launch

We’d love the opportunity to speak with you about this roll-out deal.

*Three months service of two distinct productions per week over Twitter, Facebook and Ning. Offer expires Tuesday, September 8, 2009.

Recently I ran across an article explaining why your website is not just a brochure. This led me to consider how many of the 945,000 restaurant locations in the USA use websites as a virtual door for their customers – or not. Five years ago it was the norm for hospitality operations to put up a static website with their menu or lodging, a little bio and a contact page.

Times have changed. Open the other door to your hospitality operation.

It’s time for you to open that door wide. Today’s hospitality customers are savvy. They use social media to find where to stay and dine. They use cell phones to tell their friends about where they ate last night. They use social media to find out what you have to say. They want to know who you are before they walk through your door.

How do you get your restaurant, inn, hotel or bar in front of these existing and potential patrons? It’s time to engage – time to step up to the needs of this age and expose yourself.

According to eMarketer, by 2011 the total US adult social-networking audience will grow to more than 50% of the population. Are you engaging your customer base through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn? Are you getting your story and brand out there?

I currently follow over a hundred good restaurants on Facebook. I use Urban Spoon to find restaurants that other diners like. I pay attention to the restaurants and hotels that my friends on Twitter and LinkedIn are talking about. Are you there for me to find?

Websites

Your website can’t be static anymore. Prospective patrons want to see what you’re doing this week in your operation. Writing a blog once a week or more about the happenings and specials you have engages them. Other suggestions:

Make it dynamic. Put a quick video of your chef cooking, the bartender mixing or the hotel guest soaking in the hot-tub on your front page. Put a link to your blog that tells them this week’s or today’s news. Make sure they can communicate directly to you via email, phone or social networking.

Make it visual. Get those pictures of your best products up. Link them to special deals.

Make it inviting. It’s the other door to your restaurant.

Social Networking

The future is here with social networking. If you aren’t engaging your customers through blogging, instant messaging, Twittering or micro-blogging on other social networks – you are losing guests. They want to participate in your operation, not just visit. They want to know what you believe about them, about your food, about your hotel. They want to know why you are in the business of providing for them. Why are you?

Get a Twitter account. Learn how to use it. Share your Twitter address with guests. This means you – the owner or general manager.

Get your top people twittering too. Guests want to engage the Chef, the bartender, the dining room manager and the front desk manager. Give your top people the power to engage the customer at both the front and virtual doors.

Get on Facebook. Everyday run a post about that night’s special – but make it compelling. Don’t just put a message out with your logo and “$9.95 Bacon Cheeseburger tonight”. Make your post a message people will share with their friends.

Host a “Tweetup”. Know anyone who is Twittering? Offer them a free meal or a discount on a room to do a monthly Tweetup – where they message out a Twitter-users get-together at your operation. When they come, be part of it and let them all know you Twitter too.

These are some thoughts on throwing the other, virtual door of your hospitality operation wide-open. I’ve got a lot more thoughts on how to drive customers to your place using Web 2.0 and 3.0 – and I love to share. Let me leave you with an example of the power of social media for a foodservice organization.

Two weeks ago, Starbucks launched a one-day promotion entirely and solely on Twitter. The offer was a free pastry with the purchase of a beverage. It was marketed only on Twitter for two days prior. Starbucks spent $12,000 putting the promotion together. Here are the results:

Generated nearly $500,000 in additional revenue the day of the offering

Increased Starbucks Twitter followers by nearly 250,000 in one week

Spillover sharing of the promo (friend to friend) increased Starbucks Facebook followers by nearly 40,000 in one week

Average coupon turn-in was nine per store

Customers had the choice of showing the barista the coupon on their phone or printing it out

So a return of 410 percent on the $12,000 cost of the promotion. That’s not too bad. What kind of promotion could you run through social networking?

Jeffrey Kingman is the President and Co-Founder of Chalkboarder.com, a digital community management and social media service firm to organizations. A former Executive Chef across the USA, he resides in Oregon where he satisfies his blogging passions in food and sustainability. You can follow his other blogs at:

Earlier this week I was fortunate to participate in the Northwest Sustainability Discovery Tour – a conference in Portland Oregon for industry leaders in hospitality, scientists and researchers, journalists and bloggers. Attended by 80-some people (and double the size of last year), the conference educated, provoked, challenged and fed us well.

Full Sail brew tasting on day two on the Sustainability Tour

So here’s a question for you, restaurateur:

What does sustainability mean to you?

The dictionary gives several definitions – let me pick a few you might agree with.

to support, hold, or bear up from below; bear the weight of, as a structure

to bear (a burden, charge, etc.)

to undergo, experience, or suffer (injury, loss, etc.); endure without giving way or yielding

to keep (a person, the mind, the spirits, etc.) from giving way

to keep up or keep going, as an action or process

to supply with food, drink, and other necessities of life

to provide for (an institution or the like) by furnishing means or funds

to support (a cause or the like) by aid or approval

to uphold as valid, just, or correct, as a claim or the person making it

While there are numerous definitions, this one strikes me as most appropriate.

Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs is the key principle behind the concept of sustainability.

This conference covered way too much to address in one blog. It’s a good thing there were several bloggers present; I’m looking forward to the combined reading as a result.

Perhaps the largest example of sustainability at the conference was that of the host – Truitt Brothers, a food processor/packer headquartered in Oregon. With hundreds of employees, Truitt Bros. made a conscious decision years ago to become sustainable in all aspects:

with its employees

with its farmers

with its manufacturing process

in ecological sustainability

in financial sustainability

If companies this size can top-down and bottom-up effect organizational change to sustainable practices that generate consistent returns – why can’t the rest of the commercial foodservice industry?

Located thirty miles east of Seattle, The Herb Farm Restaurant was founded on a small family farm in 1985. Their philosophy has always been on locally sourced foods. For August of 2009, Chef/Owners Ron and Carrie have created a sold-out dining experience titled 100 Mile Dinners, where all the ingredients are sourced within 100 miles. Please understand, Ron and Carrie have been at this for twenty-four years! Their staff is deeply into it with total creativity. Customers are telling all their friends! Contact: Ron Zimmerman on Twitter at @HerbGuy

Chef Brian Alberg has maintained a locally sourced purchasing philosophy for his entire career. Completely supported by the owner and working in a historic hotel, he’s busy training young cooks and educating customers on how a restaurant can sustainably purchase and operate – in an agricultural area that has a very short season. If Brian can do it in Albany, rural restaurants across the country can too. Contact: Chef Brian Alberg at balberg@redlioninn.com

Owner Scott Gill has been passionate about sustainability for some time. His Chef de Cuisine Ben Freemole, while admitting that sustainability takes a little more work (the inconvenience factor), states that the customer response is fantastic. On Friday night, August 14, 2009, Scotty’s Table hosted a Sustainability Menu for the après-theater crowd watching the movie Food Inc. Sourcing local ingredients in Montana is a definite challenge – the growing season there is measured in weeks – not months. Contact: Ben Freemole at bcfreemole@yahoo.com

Sustainable sourcing at Full Sail Brewing

You’re Neighborhood Restaurant

There’s exciting opportunity for your local restaurant to adopt sustainable practices. Let’s take a look.

Sustaining Employees

Treating employees with respect, both inter-personally and financially

Involve employees in sustainable planning/execution

Listen to their creativity

Purchasing

Purchase materials with low ecological footprint

Purchase locally grown

Purchase what’s ripe in season – best quality at lowest price

Don’t over-purchase – if you do, preserve or can it before it goes bad

Customers want to know you are “moving in” the direction of sustainability

The important thing is to be authentic. You don’t have to be completely sustainable to market it – just communicate the steps you are taking. Listen to your stake-holders suggestions and inquiries. Respond to them. Incorporate your most vocal stake-holders into the process.

Here at Chalkboarder.com, we’ve implemented our Statement of Sustainability into our operations. You can find that Statement on this blog.

Moving down the road of sustainability is becoming increasingly important today. Examining the sustainability of your operation through Life Cycle Assessments, employee/team driven creativity and customer feedback will not only strengthen your business – it will also grow it.

For further information and links to sustainability counselors and practioners, please feel free to contact me.

A new medium calls for a new way for investors. We’re approaching our social networks so we can grow.

This summer my partners and I launched a social media/networking service firm for organizations called Chalkboarder.com. We’re getting a lot of immediate interest from potential clients, business counselors and the public we talk to. We’ve had enough interest to secure startup investment early in the summer. Now its time for Phase Two.

In response to queries regarding investing in Phase Two of initial growth for Chalkboarder.com, the LLC members have devised a new way to become involved.

This new way aligns with Chalkboarder.com’s commitment to create meaningful employment, to always choose eco/economic sustainability, and to always strive for authenticity in service and in relationships.

Phase Two of our growth seeks $20,000 from investors. Rather than seek out venture capitalists or submit to the banking industry’s whims, we have decided to offer a limited number of small fractional memberships of the LLC itself.

In other words, when Chalkboarder.com profits, the increased value will belong to its clients and its investors, not to a bank or venture capitalist. We believe this path is the most egalitarian and work-affirming way we could raise our needed working capital.

It seems everyone is aware of social networking and social media, but very few understand its abilities and strengths – especially in building communities for organizations. There’s a great video published by Mashable.com that easily explains the opportunities that social networking/media present. You can find it here: http://mashable.com/2009/08/03/what-is-social-media/

Chalkboarder.com provides the human resources to organizations to build and maintain their digital communities. We’ve got a good concept in a hot market, a sound business plan and the ability/desire to grow nationally. Our mission statement focuses on three key areas based in sustainability: creating good jobs for underemployed people, providing top-notch service to our clients and providing fair return on investment to the owners.

We are at that planned milestone now – raising $20,000 through a crowd of small investors – secured entirely through social networking and digital communities – to help us with our desires:

Create meaningful employment for people

Provide top-notch social media/networking services

Create sustainable return on investment to owners

This investment provides Chalkboarder.com with operating capital through December, allowing us to grow a client portfolio that sustains us and lays the foundation for further growth.

The details: fractional ownership is available at $500 each. This represents 1/200th of company ownership. Only forty of these fractions are being offered. Single investor may own more than one fraction. Monthly, quarterly and annual reporting. Investors will be listed in a revised Articles of Incorporation with the Oregon Secretary of State. We’ve set up a PayPal account strictly for use with our investors.

To all of you who already inquired – thank you! To those of you with new inquiries – welcome! Please contact me with any questions you may have.

We made some strategic sustainability decisions at Chalkboarder.com in the past couple days. Here they are:

Business model: increased focus on personal relationships. We paid serious attention to lessons learned from Truitt Brothers, Country Natural Beef and Duke Marketing about growing a business through long-term sustainable relationships. We’ve replaced our focus on rapid-growth with a focus on sustainable growth. While this may mean less revenue generation – it does mean we are in truly personal relationships with our clients.

Eco-Sensitivity: taking responsibility for how we impact the environment. This decision is a reinforcement and deepening of some philosophies we already had in place. Strategies we’ve revised:

Travel – using mass transit as much as possible. Long-distance trains vs. airlines, renting only alternative fuel vehicles and using public transit. Encouraging staff to commute using public transit or human-power.

i. Printing – we’re only printing business cards. We decided to not use printed sales literature (this also has a benefit in reducing expenses).

ii. Advertising – our original business plan structured a portion of marketing on traditional print advertising through FoodARTS and Nation’s Restaurant News. We will only use personal networking and digital mediums to market our services (this has an expense-reduction benefit as well, saving us over $170,000 in planned expenses first year).

iii. Tradeshows – Chalkboarder.com will exhibit at tradeshows with a minimum of “take-away” materials. We will structure exhibitor presence with a maximum amount of digital media and less emphasis on printed “take-aways”.

Office-space – our plan was to use short-term office leasing in the beginning; we’re not changing that. Our plan also included adaptive reuse of a quasi-industrial loft space at a future time. When we get to that milestone, we’ve identified a local architect with a long-history in Eco-Office design.

Sustainability Promotion: being an active proponent of sustainability. We’re in discussion right now on how best to pursue this. Questions we’re asking ourselves include:

Do we take on clients that have zero belief in sustainability?

What other areas of sustainability assessment, philosophy and practice can we implement?

How can Chalkboarder.com help others to learn about, develop and practice sustainability?

As you can see, this conference was eye-opening for Chalkboarder.com. It will restructure us. It will empower us to grow carefully and in deeper consideration of the relationships we build – of the legacy we develop. We welcome any comments or suggestions you may have for us.

Click on the link – if that doesn’t work, copy and paste the link into your browser. You’ll find Jeff Kingman near the end of the photo-stream, wearing his favorite cap (orange in color, from his sailor days).

Great conversation, the sharing of a $50 dessert item and a very diverse base of good contacts were shared by all!

Despite the cold and clammy specter of an extended recession tamping down new hires, a surprising new hot job market is just emerging, and the field will break wide open this year.

The positions are so new that the titles, the job descriptions, and the requirements are fluid. But generally, the job is called “social networking strategist.”

What does a social networking strategist do?

In the simplest terms, a social networking strategist builds and manages Internet-based communities for businesses and organizations with the goal of increasing sales, enhancing the client’s image, and monitoring the web-based conversation about the client.

What education/experience is required?

Several different levels of skill and experience can match with appropriate jobs in social networking. At the highest skilled level is a Social Networking Manager or Director. A mid-level person could be a Team Leader or Advisor. A more accessible job for recent grads or those who don’t plan to get a degree is Social Networking Strategist.

Let’s look at some actual excerpts of help wanted ads posted this week by real employers for top-level jobs:
Wanted:

+Must have a 500+ Twitter follower account or are writing or have written a popular blog, and have managed a LinkedIn or Facebook Group.
+Has a bachelor’s or associates degree in music, advertising, marketing, graphics, web development, communications, English, IT, music, theater, anthropology, history or related.
+Has sales experience and understands how to drive customers through the sales funnel
+Excels at research, possesses excellent writing skills and the ability to crank editorial and technical writing output without brooding.
+Has work experience or training in advertising, PR, online marketing or similar field
+Proficient with Microsoft Office products.
+Demonstrated creativity and documented immersion in social media (really send the links)
+Experience sourcing and managing content development and publishing
+Ability to jump from the creative side of marketing to analytical side, able to demonstrate why their ideas are analytically sound
+Understands social media universe including YouTube, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, Flickr, Forums, Twitter, Wikis, blogs, etc…We’re looking for a social media addict who maintains a personal mix of participatory expertise from among these channels

See more examples of ads below this article (click here).

More technical positions are opening up, as well. Take a look at this week’s article from CNN:

Enterprise architect: “This is the most exciting job in social media and requires someone with broad experience in networks, multiple platforms, development, security and political infighting,” Durbin says. “This is a very rare find. It’s for companies looking to completely revamp their content management strategy and internal networks. It could be the most important role in a company in the next five years.”

User operations analyst: For any company with an online presence, user experience is one of the most vital parts of the business. The only way to monitor that is to have someone in charge of the experience themselves. No matter if the company is blogging, has a Web site or pages on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, user operations analysts interact with users, answer queries, investigate problems and keep track of user habits.

Who is hiring? Some of the most solid names in business and non-profits. Sony. Verizon. Planned Parenthood. Huffington Post. SAIC. AICPA. AAA of Southern California. ChicagoSchool of Professional Psychology. These are career jobs, akin to those that provided comfortable and sustained employment in the old advertising and public relations professions in the boom years of the last century.

Here’s more good news. There are plenty of social networking jobs coming up for less experienced applicants, too. Here’s a real help-wanted ad that chalkboarder.com will publish in its phase two operation this year (chalkboarder.com manages social networking for clients as a strategic marketing service).

Wanted: Social Networking Strategist for immediate hire. The job: Work on a team of five strategists under the supervision of a mid-level team leader to manage the social networking for assigned client businesses and organizations. Specific tasks: Skittering, monitoring, reporting, seeding, communicating. Useful skills: extensive experience in Internet communications, excellent communications, keen and quick thinker, fast keyboard skills. Useful education: marketing, business management. Useful experience: customer service, waitstaff, retail sales. College degree not essential. Location: PortlandOregon. For more information, contact Chalkboarder Jobs. Chalkboarder.com is a digital community management service firm offering clients real-time content production and strategic brand management messaging into online social networks.

Hard times in the nation’s economy mean hard decisions for parents and their college-age offspring. The questions persist. Will there be a job after graduation? What degree is the most likely to bring recruiters knocking? What industries and careers are vanishing? What fresh opportunities are opening, and what must a student do to be hired?

A wise parent (or a wise student) will consider employment in social networking to be a bright option worthy of exploration.
……………..

More examples from real ads:

Example #1
Candidate possesses functional knowledge or some experience with HTML/CSS
Knowledge of search engine optimization-think including basic keyword research. We name and tag our posts based on research..
Has excellent verbal and written communication skills and an ability to work individually on a project or in a team environment
Is eager to meet and exceed objectives and take on more responsibility
Brings to the position outstanding organizational skills and the ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously while meeting deadlines
Ability to communicate results to management and in a fast paced environment Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Interact with our customers to align unselfish service of their needs, with our corporate objectives
Be the eyes and ears of our brand as if your own reputation depended on it
Build and maintain our content distribution network by way of social media channels
Minute by minute participation in conversations that surround our content and brand, answer comments, be a mediator.”
Identify threats and opportunities in user generated content surrounding our brand, report to appropriate parties.
Interact with legal, search, client and cross corporate agencies.
Create content for feeds and snippets in various social media sites.
Schedule and organize multiple departments which generate content on a daily basis
Conduct keyword research including cataloging and indexing target keyword phrases
Participate in social media, as yourself and white hat avatars, on our behalf
Optimizing tags, on our feeds, sharing sites like YouTube/Flickr and search engines through copywriting, creative & keyword optimization & buzz pocket mining.
Tag and title content, with an understanding of how the word’s chosen impact natural search traffic and rankings via recurrent optimized content
Manage and track link building campaigns, coordinated with all facets of our business.
Create and update daily, weekly and monthly reports
Analyze campaigns and translate anecdotal or qualitative data into recommendations and plans for revising the social media campaigns. traditional
Minimum Visa Status: U.S. Citizen Employment Type: Full time Education Level: 4-Year College Degree

Example #2
Social Media Specialist Purpose: Serve as internal expert on social media and its application for communications and other disciplines (conferences, media relations, marketing, etc) Reports To: Senior Manager – Communications, Advertising and Brand Management. Required Competencies: Must be able to synthesize complex data into actionable information; think strategically; provide leadership, guidance, and coaching to the AICPA Communications & Media Channels team; and also be willing to implement and manage new social media programs and interaction, hands-on. Excellent new-media writing and journalism skills with readiness to use them are a must. Qualified candidates should be able to point to his/her own body of work through his/her blog, Twitter feed, LinkedIn profile, or Facebook page. Individual must be motivated, flexible, organized, and multitask-oriented and committed to high quality work product. Also must be able to work independently and perform well under pressure to meet project deadlines and goals and resolve problems. In addition, individual must have strong interpersonal skills, able to deal effectively with diverse groups of people at all levels. Ability to work in team environment, including managing multi-faceted projects with multiple partners. Passion for and deep facility in social media is a must. Individual must be self-motivated, deadline-driven and results-oriented. Regular reports on the status and success of online communications will be required. Individual must be strategic, a problem solver and deeply curious about the possibilities opened up by social media and online communications. Dedicated to continuous learning and exploration of new social media techniques.
Strong verbal and written communication skills
Self-starter, results oriented
Ability to build strong team relationships and build consensus
Quantitative skills. Individual must understand and be comfortable with creating and tracking meaningful and relevant metrics and be able to communicate them in dashboard format.

Responsibilities:
This position would work to maximize the organization’s reputation and reach on the internet by continually monitoring the ever-changing Internet landscape and making recommendations for adjustments to stay on the leading edge. The position will be expected to guide exploration of new and alternative ways to engage in and leverage social media activities, sites, memberships, relationships, and traffic in support of institutional strategic priorities. This position combines communications expertise and sensitivity with on hands knowledge of social media and emerging Web 2.0/3.O technologies. The individual in this position will work with partners internally and externally to identify and assess new opportunities and technologies for communications viability. The position also will educate internal teams on how new/emerging technologies can be utilized to achieve objectives. Key responsibilities include monitoring relevant news, conversations, and trends in social media sites, tools, and applications; applying that knowledge to increasing the use of social media for communications; strategizing with, advising, and educating staff on incorporating relevant social media techniques into communications and other outreach activities; and measuring the impact of social media on the Institute’s overall strategic communications efforts and initiatives. Writing, directly contributing, and monitoring and measuring social media usage are the key accountabilities.

Accountabilities include:
Ensure that communications opportunities and positioning on the Web is monitored and pursued.

Continually survey the Internet landscape to stay on top of emerging trends.

Identify and communicate compelling strategic reasons for implementing new/emerging Web technologies
Identify and assess emerging online communications practices and work with IT and CPA2Biz to implement solutions to facilitate the integration of such technologies
Educate staff on new/emerging Web technologies and how they can achieve key objectives.
Continually survey the Internet landscape to stay on top of emerging trends.
Identify and assess emerging online communications practices and work with IT and CPA2Biz to implement solutions to facilitate the integration of such technologies
Protect and promote the reputation through and on social media.
Drive coordinated, systematic and energetic AICPA social media efforts.
Coordinate on a programmatic, systematic effort with membership marketing to ensure effective usage of social media and social networking opportunities.

Expected Metrics:
Timely, effective monitoring of ([corporate] commentary, traffic and usage on a broad range of social media platforms.

Demonstration of knowledge and mastery of broad range of social media platforms.

Quality of writing, metrics, tracking and outreach efforts
Ability to facilitate and influence team usage of social media
Development of systems and vehicles to educate colleagues on appropriate and effective usage of social media
Documented demonstration to innovation

Qualifications:

Preferably a degree in English, Journalism, Communications, Public Relations or a related discipline;
4 or more years of experience in a corporate communications, agency or newsroom environment demonstrating facility with Web and new media technologies, especially social media and Web 2.0/3.0.
A skilled communicator and writer comfortable with technical and technological subject matter.
Experience and knowledge of the CPA profession and/or the financial services industry.
In-depth knowledge of Web 2.0/3.0 technologies and communications vehicles, video editing and Web editing tools.
A passion for engaging in online communications and educating others in social media usage